Martyrdom
by Mellaithwen
Summary: AU Devil's Trap. If the tables were turned, would John be able to pull the trigger?


**Martyrdom**

**By Mellaithwen**

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**Rating: T**

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**Genre: Angst**

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**Disclaimer: Not mine, never was, never will be and all that -dramatic pause- jazz!**

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**Summary: AU Devil's Trap. If the tables were turned, could John pull the trigger?**

* * *

John bucked as it left him, one last cry, _beg_ to his son to the deed he longed to fulfil himself but knew was no longer possible._ Finish it, just finish it, Sammy, please, god just finish it!_ But now, finally free, he could do nothing more than scream as it left through his mouth, pushing and pulling against his skin and crushing his brain, burning his sinuses, leaving no way to breathe, and for a cruel suffocating moment time was suspended as it was. With hopelessness and nothingness combined to fill his damned soul.

It finally left him, the black cloud, evil in gas form, molecules vibrated in the atmosphere and like a sudden suction they flew past Sam, who watched bewildered, gun still in hand, useless against a form not solid, while his father screamed, "No!" And Dean's body jerked once, twice, before he was completely still.

The black smoke had passed right through him, and Sam wondered if that had been how the injuries had been caused in the first place. Phantom hands cutting and slicing, leaving bloody trails across his brother's chest. Sam looked at him, still confused, still shocked, still standing still and looking...just looking.

Dean's face was pale, and in a stark contrast that made Sam cringe, his lips, and the tip of his nose was red, so red that it was almost purple, and slowly but surely a blue tinge was beginning to fade across them as the air was starved from his lungs. Like ice frosting over glass, the oxygen deprivation was showing clearly, and Sam felt his stomach drop.

"Dean!" Sam cried, despite his father's protests as he tried to get up with his leg wound, telling his son to stay back to keep away. But all Sam could see was his brother's lifeless form hunched on the ground.

"No, no, no, Dean wake up man, you have to wake up."

But when the eyes shot open, no relief came. Not hazel, but an entirely new dark flooded his brother's eyes, the pain there was gone, but the wounds were not, he smirked as shaky breaths were taken, no. His skin was still blue, no air being fed, and yet, he was getting up. Standing and,

_Oh shit_.

Glaring. Snarling. Baring his teeth, and clenching his fists.

_Not good, not good. _

"Dean?" Sam called backing away, shuddering at the change of irises. Glowing, gleaming, a sickly green before turning completely black...

* * *

You flinch as if suddenly aware of your predicament. Startled awake by a feeling so wrong. You pull at the binds around your wrists, pinning you to air, keeping you chained to nothing but still it bites against your skin, pinching as you try to break free from whatever the hell he's holding you with. You pull again, and you keep pulling until your movements are more than frantic, and your wrists are burning, your head and shoulders constantly hitting something, not a wall, but a barrier in the dark.

"Was it worth it?" A final distant voice asks, and you cannot answer, not now, the pain is too much, air is too far away, and everything looks so dark. So dead.

"Was it all, _really_, worth it?"

And sound is fleeting, breath is forgotten, another is in control. Another controls your body. Your mind and soul nothing but innocent bystanders, causing the destruction you'll never quite recall, but always regret, and always carry the burdens of their consequence...

"You are the one I am to fear?" He asks, voice echoing, and you have no reply, you don't understand, not really, never really, but you answer all the same.

"Hell yes."

A smirk on his features, so human, and yet so not and now you can see him, half hiding in your features, half hiding in another's you do not recognize, and with a touch of your fathers face still hidden deep within, and your words lose their barb, lose their bite. And you falter, lose your confidence, and swallow the lump in your throat.

"You're mortal." He says eventually, having looked you up and down for far too long. He states the obvious, and you wonder how much word really did get around about the Winchesters and their mission, their destiny, their unquestionable fate, and their ever present shadow of a death too young.

"What could you possibly do to me?" He asks, genuinely confused, and you only have one answer, you only know one thing.

"Kill you."

"I cannot be killed, not by anything you can touch, not by anything you can see, or feel. I cannot be stopped; surely you understand that by now."

"We'll beat you."

"At my own game? I should think not."

He stinks, you deduce, as his phantom form kneels in front of you, sounds cracking, your sure. You can smell it on him, the demon inside of him, and the burdens he doesn't care about or have time for clinging on to him as though he is some lost hope, but you know he is anything but. You don't understand anymore, this is your mind, and your locked inside it, while he takes your body while he ruins your everything with,

Death, destruction, murder, and malice all rolled into one stinking package of the demon you've been after since you could walk, and hold a gun at the same time.

"Was it worth it?" He hisses.

At the end of your tether, though you're not sure why, and losing adrenaline fast and unable to do anything more, you scream, and scream, and scream

"Yes!"

_God yes!_

* * *

Time is a blur of insults and emotions laid out in the open as Sam backs away and Dean-but-not-really advances with its step another mounting feeling of Dean's basking in a headlight too bright for the man who keeps everything bottled up.

"You cannot stop me, your brother didn't understand that, and look where it got him." Dean-but-not-really, sneered, making Sam flinch as his brother's lip curled in disgust at the sight of him.

"You are the fire, you are the flames," His voice said with admiration, "but you did not start it, and you will not finish it."

_This is not your fault, it's not about you._

_Then what is it about?_

_It's about that damn thing that did this to our family. The thing that we're gonna find, the thing that we're gonna kill, and that's all..._

"This ends, tonight."

"How many nights have you said that, boy? How many times have you woken up to her screams? Every other night isn't it? Every other dream that doesn't foretell of the future, shows you the past over and over and over again, as she blames wholeheartedly always for killing her, _Why Sam, Why?_ As the flames surround her frail pretty little body. Golden hair turning to ash in my fingers. One little touch was all it took. Her skin was so soft, Sam. Her blood, so pure on my lips. I can still hear her, so confused, so innocent, so naïve."

"It's not naïve when you know you're right." Sam said through gritted teeth as his brain tried to process that it was Dean, _no never Dean_, taunting him over Jessica's murder, and his dreams.

"And what makes you right? Who decided that light, and good, should be the ones to rule? Who says your existence is better, and worth more?"

"Universal thoughts." Sam said simply, referring to people on the most-part who agreed that light ruled over dark just as good should rule over evil.

"Are they? Darkness suffocates. Starves the light from every corner, it's contagious, and it's everywhere."

"What and light isn't?"

"Light, has a shadow, light if fleeting. Much like you, and your family."

"Or you and your existence."

"You know what always amuses me about you few hunters? The entire human race could believe in us, could hunt us, and we'd still outnumber you 10 to 1. Face it, Sammy, you're never going to win."

"Yeah? Well neither are you."

"So much like your brother...tell me, will you miss him when he dies? Will you grieve when his body is broken? Oh, I forgot, it already is." He sneered and laughed when Sam barrelled into him, the words too harsh for his still sensitive ears. He didn't care that it was Dean receiving the brunt of the pain, he didn't notice, all he heard was the mocking tone in which Jessica's memory was being tarnished and all he could do was fight.

Dean fell hard, his body practically bouncing on the floorboards. His head colliding hard with the ground, but the demon inside, keeping him awake, keeping him alive, even when science demanded that the body give in, and fail. Sam could have sworn he saw a steady trickle of blood fall down his brother's neck, from the corners of his lips, but the demon was unfazed. The demon didn't feel it like Dean would.

The demon had to be stopped. John was on his feet now. Wondering if he should rush the creature or not. It was no secret that the demon would retain a hell of a lot more strength than a man shot, and weak from his own recent possession, not to mention any injury caused to Dean, while possessed would still linger long after the demon was gone, and John couldn't bring himself to hurt his son more, not when his own hands had already done so much damage to the boy's body...

The boy he had held, and rocked after bad dreams, and begged to talk to him, to tell him what was wrong after weeks of silence that the doctor diagnosed as post traumatic stress. Nothing too serious, just something they would have to work on as a family unit _of course._ John had swallowed the words that such a thing no longer existed, but he wondered if Dean had ever thought the same, he wondered how many more thoughts and emotions the demon might bring out into the open, tearing at the last shreds of dignity Dean kept close to him.

"Tell me," He, the demon in Dean, but never his son, interjected. "How is it a human with your tedious little conscience can survive being so flawed?"

He didn't answer, and the demon continued in Dean's voice.

"You fail your wife, abandon your children, hunt me down for twenty-three years, and now what? You can't kill me John. It just isn't possible."

"You-"

"Yes, me, _daemon, belua, anghenfil_. All the names in the world, you've associated yourself with, for over twenty years, but you still don't know what _I_ am, you're still as clueless as ever."

"I don't need to know what you are." _To kill you._

But when the demon heard John's words, all he could see in the stone cold gaze was misplaced confidence, so unbecoming of a man who prided himself on always being right, even when he clearly wasn't. No, there was confusion and turmoil, and the demon was enjoying every minute of it. His eyes narrowed to nothing but slits in a young man's face as he replied, matching the cocky tone with one so common for this host's voice-box.

"Of course you do. You cannot hunt the thing without a name any more than you can hunt the man without a face."

"It's no man I'm hunting."

"Isn't it? How can you be sure? How do you know that all of man-kind doesn't derive from my very existence?"

"We're not killers like you."

"Oh I beg to differ, John, I really do."

"You don't know anything about me."

"But Dean does, and as much as he tries to hide it from me, he knows it's true. I was here before the world was here, John, before _He_ turned up, before there was light, because dark was ever present and referred to something different than everything. Before the dark had a name, before it needed a name, and believe you me, John, if I was the first, no weapon by the second, third, or fourth can ever kill me."

"That's where you're wrong." Sam piped up from behind.

"Ah dear Sammy, the one to blame for the ruined childhood of this host of mine."

Sam blanched.

"You know he cries at night, when he thinks no one can hear him. He comforts you when _you_ scream in the dark, but who comforts him? Nobody. You are all nobody's. Little men in search of a purpose, bringing forth their own premature death."

"The only one, who's dying tonight, is you."

"And you, John, leading your children down the road of sacrifice. Trading their lives for revenge. I am the Father, I have Son's and Daughters, and they will do as I say out of loyalty, they will die for a cause far better than your own, but then, it takes a lot to kill them. Whereas Dean here, is dying, and all his soul can do is scream."

"Leave my son alone!"

"I am not the one who led him down this path. I am not the one who left him alone, vulnerable, and I am not the one who will kill him in the end."

The smirk had something more hidden in it's crooked smile, and as soon as the words were given a second to sink in, Dean's head fell back and his body jerked, falling to his knees, taking deep breaths as though he had never done so before. Sam took the distraction in his stride, reaching for the gun he dare not touch until now, while John still glared, wondering what mind games the demon was playing now. What hand he would play in this deadly game of poker.

"'s n-not your f-fault, Dad." There came the shuddering gasp, and John's eyes softened. The voice was his son's, the tone, the words, earnest, but true? John doubted it very much.

"Dean?"

He looked up for a moment, eyes wild, and afraid, and John saw the pain, and the demon's words hit him hard. _Dying._ His son was dying. How many times would he be forced to face up to that fact before they were all put out of their misery, one way or another.

"D-dad." Dean gasped, before the eyes darkened and he was on his feet once more. A grim smile in place of the gasping from a second ago. The demon was indeed playing with them, letting the oldest son say goodbye, to taunt the remaining hunters, now so wary, so cautious, and oh how it amused him endlessly.

"Tell me John, his endurance levels are quite high, but how much damage can his body truly sustain. You don't know of his injuries, but I do." He waited, strayed closer, not even looking at the gun pointed at his head. "I put them there, or rather, you did." He hissed and John couldn't stop himself from pushing out, backhanding the demon hidden in his son's face, pushing Dean-but-not-really to the floor. A trickle of blood fell from his split lip, only pooling with the rest, and the demon looked up, surprised the man had hurt his son as though he had underestimated him.

"You hit your children as well? Why am I not surprised? You know he's afraid of you now." He licks his teeth, Dean's teeth rather, that are stained red, as he seems pleased with himself.

"All he can see is you hurting him, you telling him that no one cares, that he isn't needed, that he isn't the favourite. You did this to him, John. You." And he gestured to the bloody chest, only staining a darker red as time passed by. Skin was getting more blue, sweatier, and paler than earlier, than ever they'd seen his skin pallor before. Dean's body was going into shock, from blood loss, internal bleeding or all of the above, and when any normal person would have collapsed, or at least stayed still to rest, the demon was still moving, unperturbed by Dean's dying.

The blood was still bubbling at the corners of his mouth, flowing like rivulets down his chin, neck, and pooling on his shirt, already red enough as it is. So much red, everywhere...and John was fairly sure there was bleeding within as well.

If they didn't get him to a hospital soon...

The demon began to rise, slowed down by the body he inhabited, but John's foot stopped him, pressing down on his chest, as he gestured over to Sam to join him, and grabbed the gun from the younger boy's hands.

"You can't do it, John. There's no way he'll survive."

"Dad?" Sam voiced, but never continued, and neither would know if he was about to help his father finish the task, or indeed stop him. Sam's heart was tearing not into two, but into several broken pieces, making his chest ache, and his eyes burn...

* * *

"Was it worth it?" He asks, the sickly voice ringing in your ears, your mind fleeing, your body no longer your own. "All of the death, all of the pain, sacrifice. Was it worth it, to just end up here? Alone, and broken?"

You can't stand, not unless he wants you to, and you're weaker than ever before, but you still whisper with the last of your soul's bright light and confidence.

"Yes,"

_Always yes. _

"Was this how you envisioned it all?" And the dastardly demon sounds genuinely curious. "Did you agree to this fight to reach this point? You're leaving your brother alone, something you vowed never to do again.

"S-stay out of my h-head." You stutter, weaker, weaker, colder, breathing harsher, and you wince at how stupid it sounds. You're in your own head, and he's all around, and he can hear it all, see it all, touch it all, and feel it all. He is you, but you will never be him.

And come to think of it, you're pretty damn sure you've had enough of hearing the insults coming out of your mouth because the demon doesn't have the guts to say them himself, without hiding behind another's features. You've had enough, you know your family has, so why then, are you letting him get away with it?

_Fight, fight, fight god damn it, fight!_

And win.

* * *

Dark, black eyes bored down on John from within his son's eyelashes. He blinked, once, twice, grinned, and looked away. "You won't do it. You couldn't save Mary. Oh she was pretty. Blonde hair turned to ash, charred beyond anything. Dead and still burning in the Hell where she belongs."

The gun cocked the sound deafening to all. A malicious smile. "You can't, can you? You're a failure. You failed your sons in ways you'll never understand, only regret, you are the worst kind of father, you don't care about them, you put them in harms way on a daily basis. They will die, and I will personally ensure you're there to watch them take every last br-_no._"

The face changed with the cry, mid sentence, wild, and then calm for a moment, eyes hazel once more, gleaming with a fever, a pain that would never go away, eyes shining, now with glistening tears not fallen still, held back, imploring, even a little scared. Turning back to the gun in his face, Dean began screaming; shouting, begging...He had one thing left to do. One more thing, he could do, before everything stopped, finished, darkened, before the demon had control once more.

"Do it!"

He remembered saying it to Sam; he remembered the gun then, the _click, click, click_ of an empty barrel, the _click, click, click_ of betrayal. But this gun had one bullet. This gun had one shot to take, and there was no way John Winchester could miss. There was no way a hunter with his experience, and his determination, could miss. Point blank, one shot.

The end of all things? No, just maybe, on his part.

"It's over." He thought to himself, well aware that the damned soul inside of him could hear Dean's threat only too well. The demon was inside of him, clinging on, but at the same time so eager to leave as the barrel twisted, and the bullet aligned ready.

"_Do it!"_

And the trigger was pulled, the only hesitation in the father's mind.

It was only after when all was still, a gurgle and a hiss, and the quiet that kills...It was only after when Sam was sobbing, grabbing the body, screaming the name, wishing, praying, checking for a pulse...it was only after, when the echoes of the gunshot were ebbing away, and he stayed on his knees, crumbling in front of the corpse, the bloody mess of his little boy, did John realise that the voice that had begged for the end to come, was not the demon's voice at all...

**-Fin.**

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